


faith or blind conviction

by sinkingsidewalks



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, HEA Guaranteed, with a platonic marriage in the middle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2019-11-26 12:21:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18180527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinkingsidewalks/pseuds/sinkingsidewalks
Summary: “Tell you what,” he says, instead of dealing with real possibilities for the future. “If neither of us is married by the time you’re thirty, we’ll get married.”--A Marriage Pact Fic





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone and welcome to the Procrastination Train! I’m happy to announce we will be taking the longest ever route to our destination, nowhere. If you look out the window on your right side you will see all the work I’m not doing and the editing I’m avoiding, while the view on the left consists of that horse that’s not being exercised and more traditional responsibilities I so love to just not do. If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to leave them in the comments below, or find me on tumblr where I’m also @sinkingsidewalks. This first chapter is just a little intro, a prelude of sorts to get into the story, so sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride because we’ll be going in circles, forever.  
> (that was a really dumb joke, sorry)

**Canton, 2004**

“No one is ever going to love me,” Tessa sighs, overly dramatic and morose for a fourteen-year-old currently sprawled out over his bed. He can’t quite tell how serious she is, and how much she’s just playing a character out of one of her Audrey Hepburn movies. It’s not uncommon for her to spend the evening at his apartment instead of hers. He knows she misses living in a busy family house – with siblings crashing over each other and a mother to shout up the stairs that dinner’s ready – and her roommate doesn’t exactly fit the bill.

But tonight she’s fully wallowing, about some guy at her school that he hates on principle – because he’s her best friend and this guy hurt her, no other reason – and about how all the other girls in her class have been on real dates (plural) and she’s only kissed Chiddy that one time during spin the bottle after a competition.

“I’m going to be thirty and old and alone,” she whines, one hand thrown back over her eyes. 

There’s a certain unease to thirty that he works hard to swallow around. Thirty is retirement. Thirty is a whole new life, a whole new career, that he hasn’t even begun to imagine. Thirty is not seeing Tess all day, every day.

“Tell you what,” he says, instead of dealing with real possibilities for the future. “If neither of us is married by the time you’re thirty, we’ll get married.”

Tessa scoffs, her one socked foot thumps gently against the wall as more evidence of her disapproval.

“I’m serious.” He rolls off the bed, knees cracking against the old wood floorboards under the discarded sweatpants he lands on. “It’ll be great, we’ll get to hang out all the time, just like now.”

Tessa only scoffs again, folds her legs into a knot while she cracks her spine. She doesn’t buy that he’s serious so he’ll have to convince her, he thinks. 

He goes over to his desk and digs through the piles of old assignments and work out plans for a minute before he can find a clean sheet of paper. There’s a pen on his bedside table, and he perches on the edge of the bed to write against the surface. He can feel Tessa’s eyes on his back but he doesn’t turn to look at her. 

_I, Scott Moir_ , he writes in his most legible printing, _promise to marry Tessa Virtue if neither party has found a suitable partner by Virtue’s thirtieth birthday._ He signs the bottom, then prints the date neatly beneath that, smacks the pen on the table and finally turns back to Tess. 

She’s peering over his shoulder, curious, yet dubious, an eyebrow raised like she does when she doesn’t understand one of his jokes and is awaiting an explanation. But he’s totally serious.

“Sign kiddo, and it’ll be official.”

She’ll sign it, he knows. She loves this stuff. He remembers her making Jordan sign a little slip just like this before borrowing a book of hers when she was ten or eleven – then complaining all the way out to Waterloo one morning when Jordan hadn’t returned the book by the printed date. 

She rolls her eyes but picks up the pen. 

 

**London, 2019**

His parents decide to move out of their family home while they’re still active enough to participate and Scott thinks it’s the best decision until he’s standing in his childhood bedroom surrounded by thirty-one years’ worth of junk. It’s a good decision, he knows, it’s too much space for the two of them, especially since he’s finished his house outside of Ilderton and can host Danny and the kids any time they visit, and he knows the stairs have been rougher on his mom’s knees lately than she’s willing to admit, but now that he’s knee deep in old science projects and hockey gear and early reader novels, he’s more inclined to hope that the whole thing will just spontaneously go up in flames. 

Tessa, who he co-opted into helping because she’s the most organized person he knows who will also do anything if he even insinuates Alma wanted her help, tragically doesn’t share his dislike of the activity. 

“Oh my gosh!” she crows, having unearthed another photograph that he can only assume is old. “Look at how tiny we were. We’re practically babies.”

He looks at the photo over her shoulder, a polaroid snapshot of them on the ice, grainy under the rink lights, with their arms slung around each other, which he can only assume is from their early days in Canton. “I’m sixteen there.”

“I know,” she cackles, her big laugh, the one that still gets a smile out of him even through his exasperation. He shoves her shoulder playfully and she falls back onto his creaky twin mattress, still laughing. 

“I brought you here to help T, not dredge up teenage insecurities,” he teases as he reaches up into the closet to pull another shoe box full of god knows what off the top shelf. 

“I’m helping, I swear,” she says while he pretends not to notice her tuck the photo into her pocket. She’s getting so many Instagram throwback posts from this venture that he’s lost the shred of childhood guilt he felt this morning at weaseling her into doing his chores. 

She goes back to sorting the papers strewn across his bed, separating out the junk from the nostalgia while he opens up the box. It’s full of incredibly old achievements, a trophy from a soccer team he doesn’t remember playing on, skating skills achievement certificates with ink so faded he can hardly read his own name, tiny plastic medals from local competitions he and Tess did together. He turns to ask if she wants them, but the words die in his throat when he sees her staring intently at a piece of old scrap paper. 

“What’d you find?” He asks, going to look over her shoulder, with growing unease that it might be something embarrassing. Did he write her name in hearts ever? Or anyone’s name in hearts? He’s almost certain he threw out his old porn stash when he packed up from Canton but what if he missed something? She’d tease him about that forever. 

Then he reads it over her shoulder, sees his still unformed teenage signature at the bottom next to hers, zones in on the words _marry Tessa Virtue_ and feels a little like he can’t breathe. The memory knocks into him. 

It was silly, a joke more than anything, something to make her feel better that he hadn’t thought much of as he’d done it. But it stuck with him for months. Dreams and daydreams of Tessa in a white dress, watching her walk down the aisle of the church where he went to Christmas Eve Mass from the altar instead of a pew. It was the beginning of the shift, when he’d stopped thinking of her as his kid best friend and realized that he could drown in the green of her eyes, would willingly scald his hands only to touch the heat of her skin. 

It was the start of cool down moments instead of water breaks while they worked on tangos and the end of sharing hotel rooms and sleepovers. All while he tried so hard not to think about it, not to acknowledge that anything had changed between them, because it couldn’t ever change. He had to be her partner, first and foremost, and he’d spent the last fifteen years with only that aim in mind.

“Think it’s still valid?” Tessa jokes to break the silence, but still he can hear her own unease. 

He forces a laugh, it sounds too much like air, and doesn’t quite manage the casual joking tone he wants when he says, “Of course, Virtch.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tessa thinks about weddings, Scott goes to visit his girlfriend

She can’t stop thinking about it. 

It’s silly, she knows, it was nothing more than a teenage joke, an attempt of Scott’s to get her to stop wallowing over whatever boy had rejected her that day. She can’t even remember his name now. Scott was never actually going to marry her, she’s known that since he turned fifteen, started having teenage mood swings and her childhood crush washed away as easily as a wave swept away their names written in the sand at her family’s cottage. 

And it’s a _good_ thing. Their relationship works because it’s built on mutual goals and respect, that’s never been a lie. No matter what story the media has concocted. 

No one’s ever been off limits the way that Scott was off limits. Is. The way Scott _is_ off limits. They may not be competing anymore but they’ve still got business together, there are tours and coaching and deals. Not to mention more than twenty years of friendship that she can’t screw up now. Not when they’re retired and actually figuring out how not to live in each other’s back pockets and doing it _well_.

Except she still misses him whenever they go two days without talking. And she went straight to his house from the airport last night instead of to her own home that she hasn’t seen in weeks and slept in his guest room under the guise of sharing a car to his parents’ house this morning. Even now, as she lies in her own bed, the one that should be far more comfortable than hotels and guest rooms, she still feels like something is just a bit off not being able to hear him snoring through the wall.

But she doesn’t love him like that. Not the way that everyone thinks she should, not the way that marriage implies. Even her crush, if she ever really had one, was only admiration. For the way he moved on the ice, the way he made friends with everyone he spoke to, how he made people laugh. 

Besides, he has a girlfriend, one he’s really working to make work this time. She’s proud of him for that. And she’s more than busy with work. So really, she should just forget the whole thing, she had for years anyway, and certainly not think about how when he’d taken the paper from her, he’d set it in the keep pile instead of the trash. 

It’s nothing, she tells herself, nothing but idle curiosity that has her contemplating the event cakes on display when she stops in at her favourite bakery to pick up a coffee and croissant after a good week of tour planning. It’s fascination that makes her gaze linger over a happy couple, hand in hand, while her car sits idle at the red light outside the church. 

She never thought about her wedding as a child, wasn’t one of those little girls with the Barbie in a wedding dress, one who kissed boys under the maple tree at the back of the playground and wore a dandelion stem knotted around her ring finger for the rest of recess. She doesn’t know if it was just her personality or maybe her own parents frequently rocky marriage, but a husband never really seemed like it was in her future. Then, the Olympics were in sight and she knew it was all she could think about. 

Except now she can’t stop wondering. A destination wedding or one at home in London? In a church or a venue? Outside, or is the weather in May still too volatile, too prone to turning on a dime from sunshine to storming, to be able to trust with an outdoor service?

The courthouse, she decides, after three days of pointless rumination. With only a handful of family and close friends, intimate enough to not feel exposing, and a good dress to satisfy her more fairy tale desires. Then, of course, a party.

She’s never been one for princess ball gowns, always prefers a close cut to a skirt she has to haul around with her, so the archetype dress wouldn’t be her thing. Instead, she thinks about lace. About the flowers on that one Moulin Rouge dress that could curl up against her collar bones and stretch down her arms, but in white instead of red. And maybe a small skirt, for traditions sake, tea length for early spring. 

Scott in a tux to match – he’s always looked great in one, ever since she first haggled him into a bowtie – both of them just a touch on the far side of formal. 

She doesn’t know why she’s planning their hypothetical wedding. She doesn’t know when Scott turned into her groom. She writes it off as latent energy, her brain already in planning mode from tour details, and resolves not to overthink it. 

 

Tessa texts him saying she’s home and he can head over but then doesn’t reply when he says he’s leaving the rink and will be a half hour. He uses his own key to slip through her front door anyway, figuring she either fell asleep for an afternoon nap or is too engrossed in her emails to hear her phone, and subsequently, the front door. He hopes it’s the former, the last few times he’s seen her this week she’s looked just a little too run ragged for his taste. Nowhere near where she was at right after the Olympics of course, but still like she was staying up into the small hours answering emails from another time zone and double checking bookings. 

He doesn’t find her curled up under the fluffy blanket in the den though, instead she’s amidst a veritable disaster zone in the kitchen. 

She points a whisk at him as he drops his backpack to the floor and grabs her attention. “Say nothing.” Raw egg drips onto the countertop. Scott bites the inside of his lip to keep from laughing.

“How’s it going, T?”

“Fine,” she huffs, returning the whisk to the bowl. 

He leans on the island counter, surveying her work. The bowl has a sprinkle of herbs floating atop beaten egg and there are piles of a variety of chopped vegetables in other bowls scattered around the kitchen. “Whatcha making?”

“Frittata.” She whisks at the eggs again but the herbs stay floating. “Jordan swore it was easy.”

He rolls up his sleeves and goes to wash his hands. “On another cooking kick I see.” The sink faces out the window so he can’t actually see her roll her eyes but he knows she does. 

“It’s a five step recipe, I don’t see how I could screw it up that badly.”

“I’m just saying there’s basics you could start with. You know, maybe not something that could give us Sam and Ella?”

“Salmonella,” Tess corrects absently.

He shrugs. “To-mah-to.”

“To- _may_ -to.” She gestures across the kitchen to a bowl full of the vegetable. “Grab them?” She’s already piling mushrooms into a glass baking dish. He dries his hands on a dish towel and grabs the bowl of tomatoes and another of zucchini he assumes she’ll need as well. He watches as she piles in the vegetables, then cheese, then dumps the egg mixture on top. 

“Oven?” he asks, picking up the dish.

“Half an hour. Work while we wait?” 

He nods. “Go get your laptop, I’ll clean up.”

The frittata cooks while they sit around the kitchen island working through details for the next tour. Before he knows it the timer beeps and they stand clustered around the stovetop peering into the baking dish trying to determine if it’s actually cooked all the way through or not.

Once it’s deemed edible, Tessa serves them up plates while Scott pours her a glass of wine and grabs himself a beer from the fridge and they sit down to eat. Scott digs in, hungry after a long day at the rink, and Tessa watches curious, awaiting his review.

He kicks her shin underneath the table with one socked foot. “It’s good.” 

She eyes him wearily. Not quite believing that he’s not just being polite and supportive. 

“It _is_.” He rolls his eyes, takes another large bite to prove his point then almost chokes when a piece of steaming hot vegetable burns the top of his mouth. Laughter gleams in Tessa’s eyes as he coughs his way through swallowing. 

They finish dinner, load up the dishwasher side by side, then sit back down to keep working. There are decisions to be made, details to plan, especially before he leaves the next morning since trying to work over FaceTime is only so productive. 

Evening falls, and with an early flight the next morning he has to head out earlier than normal. Instead of hanging around, watching Netflix or a game until they’re both half asleep on the couch, he begs off once they’re done with work for the day.

She walks with him to the front door. “Don’t forget we’ve got that call on Tuesday.”

He nods, pulling his boots on. “It’s in my calendar.”

“Okay. So, two weeks.”

“Two weeks.” It’s still weird not travelling together. They don’t know how to go about this saying goodbye ritual when they won’t be seeing each other again the next morning. When separation is normal, routine, not to be made note of. 

He hugs her. She folds into his chest and all the tension drains from the both of them. Part of him wishes he didn’t have to go, the way he always does, that he could stay here, in the familiarity of home, forever. But he promised his girlfriend he’d visit, and he and Tess can’t stay within arm’s length of each other forever. 

“Love you,” he says into her hair, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. 

She squeezes his ribs, her hand sneaking under his coat to press against his back where his ribs expand with every breath. “Love you too.”

 

Tessa gets a text from Scott the next day when he’s landed safely and doesn’t hear from him for the weekend like she expected. Their conference call with the tour sponsors goes smoothly on Tuesday, and they debrief quickly afterwards about what else needs to be finalized this week. Then she spends Wednesday on the phone with different choreographers. 

Thursday morning Tessa gets a call from Alma, and spends the day helping get down heavy boxes of Christmas decorations and old toys from the overflowing basement. It’s an odd exercise in nostalgia for Tessa. None of the ornaments ever graced her family’s tree, none of the old artwork or school assignments have her name on them, nor does she remember any of the toys from her own birthday celebrations, but they all still make up her childhood. 

She hasn’t thought much about Alma and Joe moving out since Scott told her and she certainly hadn’t thought to be sad about it. Especially because they’re not even selling the house outside of the family, one of Scott’s cousins is just moving in. But, as they dig out old costumes and plastic trophies, she can’t help but feel like this is truly the end of an era. Not their retirement, but that the little house behind the first rink they ever skated in will no longer be filled with the stampeding feet of Scott and his brothers and the smell of Alma’s secret gingersnap recipe baking in the oven. 

By the time they call it a day, it’s mid-afternoon and they make their way back up to the kitchen for coffee. Alma fills a plate with Tessa’s favourite double chocolate cookies and shortbread to go with their coffee and catch up. Tessa texts Scott a picture of the table with the caption, _I’m her favourite child,_ but she doesn’t hear back.

On Friday she doesn’t open her social media apps that day until she’s cooling off in the gym after an easy work out mid-afternoon. She had a conference call with a potential sponsor that lasted all morning, then she got distracted making notes and almost missed Pilates, and the gym is firmly a phone free – thought free really – zone of her own making. She only breaks her own rule on light days, when she knows she doesn’t have to pay much attention to the stretching she could still do in her sleep.

It’s immediately clear that that was a good decision for the day. 

Amid the chaos, there’s a photo of Scott, standing in what looks like an airport duty free store, perusing what are very clearly engagement rings. It’s from a week ago, if the posts are to be believed, the day he was flying down to see his girlfriend. 

She doesn’t know why her stomach sinks. It shouldn’t. She’s always known he was going to get married someday. That’s what he’s always wanted, he’s always had that picture in his head, clear and strong and something to strive for. And – her absent wedding planning aside – she knows she’s not actually losing anything from him. He’s still her business partner, even with a wife. 

The thought tastes sour though, despite her attempts to logic away her ill ease. Scott with a _wife_. It’s weird. She tells herself that it’s because sometimes she looks at him and sees the ten-year-old boy with a crooked smile still. She tells herself the reason she feels weird is because he didn’t mention it to her, that he kept a secret, is still perhaps keeping a secret, and she had no inclination. Not like the time he overheard what she was getting for her birthday and his cheeks burned, and he couldn’t look her in the eye for three days until he caved and spilled. 

She closes her phone, not wanting to think about it further, and snags a free treadmill to burn away her thoughts. 

 

He doesn’t know why he goes into the store. Usually he skips by duty free entirely, brushing past absurd packages of candy and coughing his way through the perfume section as quickly as possible. But for some reason, the glitter of diamonds catches his eye. 

He tells himself mothers’ day is coming up. That so is Tess’ birthday and she always likes shiny things. And that good boyfriends sometimes buy their girlfriends gifts for no reason at all. Though none of that justifies the fact that he strays past necklaces and bracelets, barely glances at the array of available earrings, and ends up staring into the glass case of rings. Engagement rings. 

Even though he has no plans to propose. At all. It hasn’t even been an errant thought in the back of his mind. The future, beyond a month or two, hasn’t been discussed between them. 

Still, he peruses. Rings with square cut diamonds, and round, and oval ones. Ones with stones embedded in the band, others with a small cluster around the center stone. There’s probably fancy words for all of it that Tess knows but for Scott it’s hardly more than a sea of glitter. 

There’s one in the glass case that draws him, a smaller center stone, a diamond cut classically in a circle, with two green emeralds flanking it. But the hand that he imagines it on, he realizes with a pit in his stomach that he tries to shake away, is not his girlfriend’s. He figures he should move on, he’s got a plane to catch and all. Besides, they all look the same to him anyway. 

“Those are all platinum bands,” A sales lady says, approaching him. “They’re a bit more expensive than gold but you’ll get much more longevity in wear so really it’s worth the price. Is there anything you want a closer look at?”

He smiles at her politely. “I was just browsing, thanks though.”

He goes to find his gate, ignoring the way the stones winked at him.

 

Tessa falls asleep on her couch after running herself to exhaustion at the gym. She worked until her muscles shook, until she could hardly breathe around her own exhaustion, moved from a treadmill to free weights to a rowing machine because that’s all that was free once the after work hours hit. None of it conducive to skating, none of it part of her fitness plan to get into tour shape. But it allowed her to not be able to think of anything but how tired she was on her drive home, and fall directly into a dreamless sleep once there. 

She wakes only when the front door slams shut and her name is called out through the house. She sits up slowly because she recognizes it as Scott, feeling the already present ache in her muscles and the hollow in her stomach from missing dinner. 

“Here,” she calls back at him through a yawn. He finds her in the back den a minute later, and she doesn’t need all of her awareness to note that he looks tired, more so than usual after a flight. A second later she realizes that he wasn’t supposed to be back until next week.

He sags onto the couch beside her, dropping his head into her arm and rubbing his hair there like a dog wanting to be pet. She cards through his locks sleepily, wondering if he wants to talk about whatever’s bothering him. Her stomach grumbles before she can get words out.

“You have dinner?” he asks softly, heaving through an exhale, like three words took all his remaining energy. 

Tessa shakes her head. “Not yet.”

“Good,” he picks his head up off her body, “Chinese?”

She agrees. He digs his phone out and goes into the kitchen for menus even though he has the number saved and they order the same thing every time. She watches him go. He’s bristling against something she can’t see, defensive, even in his posture, even with just her, enough so that she doesn’t want to just come out and ask what’s bothering him. Historically, that’s a good way to get him to explode. She sucks in a breath and waits for him to come back and set two beers on the coffee table. 

“Twenty minutes,” he says, she nods. 

She takes a sip of beer and watches him. She can’t get a good read on what he’s actually feeling. His spine is stiff, he’s sitting up straight on the couch instead of lounging like he usually does, but there’s an exhaustion in his limbs which contradicts, that proves he’s not nervous or angry. He’s tired, definitely, and sad, maybe. 

Tessa tucks her feet under her and leans into his stiff shoulder until he breaks and wraps an arm around her. She doesn’t say anything, just waits until the doorbell rings for the food then goes to pay the delivery. When she gets back with the bags, he’s turned the TV onto a hockey game.

They eat through the food. Wontons, fried rice, lemon fried chicken, sweet and sour pork, and the vegetable chow mein she likes. He obviously ordered for a night of emotional eating. She lets him have the last dumpling but they don’t talk except to yell absently at the hockey game. 

Then the coffee table is littered with empty takeout boxes, loose packets of soy sauce, and empty beer bottles. Tessa gets up to pack the leftovers into the fridge, bringing them both back refills. 

She hands him the beer and he says without preamble, “She cheated on me.” Tessa folds her legs onto the couch and sits to face him. Scott keeps staring at the TV. 

“I’m sorry,” she says truthfully. She’s always sorry, whenever he’s hurt. It always aches in her own chest as well. 

He only sighs. Then picks up the remote and stabs the off button at the TV. They settle into the silence that greets them. 

“I’m not even mad about it.” He shakes his head and stares down at the beer bottle he’s picking the label off of. “I know I should be, but I-“ He laughs at himself, looks up at her through his eyelashes. “This is gonna sound terrible.”

Tessa shrugs. “It’s only me.” He almost smiles, which she counts as a win. 

“I didn’t really care that much.”

“About her cheating?” Tessa clarifies. 

“About… her…” His head falls back and thumps against the structure of the couch and he groans. “God, my mom would kill me for that.”

She has to cover her smile. He got no shortage of emphasis from his mom growing up about how to treat women, but there’s no doubting that Alma raised good men. 

“Hey, you know my stance on consensual adult relationships.” She gave up the idea of boyfriends a while ago, somewhere between one trying to fight Scott over her and another who consistently explained her own business plans to her. 

“I know, I know. And you know I take no issue with that, but that’s not what this was supposed to be.”

“Scott,” she says, gently, touching his hand to really get his attention, “You’re allowed to not commit two hundred percent of yourself to something.” She squeezes his hand to press the point home, then gets up, motioning to their beers. “We definitely need something stronger for this talk.” She lets him think about it while she heads back into the kitchen. 

She doesn’t drink much, the beer in the fridge is his most of the time, old habits die hard after all, and the calories weren’t worth it when they were training. She’d rather have chocolate if she was going to treat herself. But she keeps a stocked liquor cabinet because Jordan often likes to play bartender when she visits and make them fancy drinks. Now, she grabs the bottle of vodka from the freezer and two shot glasses. 

She pours for him, then herself, once back in the den and they don’t say anything as they knock back the shots. The liquor burns down her throat and spreads warmth into the pit of her stomach as she waits him out. 

“I just don’t know where I keep going wrong,” he sighs and pours and they drink.

She nods along that she’s listening, her head already getting fuzzy. She’s nothing if not a lightweight. “In this case, I don’t really think it’s anything that you did, kiddo.”

He grimaces, like he doesn’t believe her. “Maybe.”

“Did she explain herself at least?” Tessa can’t really comprehend cheating on someone like Scott, who goes all in and gives you his whole heart. But maybe that’s just twenty years talking, her own bias of only ever wanting to skate with him. 

“Sorta. She said she made a mistake.” He scoffs, “Then I could tell I was going to get angry so I left. And came here. I didn’t really think about it; I was just at the airport.”

“Oh Scott,” she leans on his shoulder, cuddling into the crook of his arm. “I’m sorry.”

He shrugs, they go back to drinking their beers, which she distantly recognizes as sort of a bad idea. 

“I just wish…” He sighs, stops, and she bumps his shoulder with her head. 

“What? You wish what?”

He pulls her all the way into his lap, slots her back against his chest and sags both their bodies into the corner crease of the couch. She fumbles with his hand, fingers feeling too thick, until she can link them with his. His chin drops against her shoulder and she can smell the beer on his breath. 

“I just wish that it wasn’t so hard. That I could be with someone and love them and have them love me and just be with them. You know? Not have so much other bullshit in the way.”

She squeezes his hand. “You’ll find someone. I know you will. You’re such a good man, Scott, you’re the best man. Anyone would be lucky to have you. You’ll find someone who fits and she’ll be great, and you’ll get married and live happily ever after, I know it.”

She feels him shrug and she wants to convince him. To make him see himself like she sees him, kind and loyal and passionate. But she knows tonight he just needs to wallow, so they sit in silence, just breathing together in comfortable tandem. She doesn’t notice when her eyes fall shut. 

“It’s late,” he mumbles. “We should go to bed.”

She shakes her head, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder. She feels half asleep already, like she couldn’t move her limbs if she tried, they’re too heavy. Her eyes stay closed. “Don’t wanna move.”

He pulls her down so she’s laying on her side against him and it feels like the whole room spins for a moment. But then he’s tucking a blanket around them, with one arm anchoring around her waist and she can only hum her approval. He kisses the back of her head, sloppy and wet. 

“You’re the only one I ever wanted to marry, T.” He says, and she falls asleep not knowing if it was a dream or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone who liked the last chapter and let me know. I hope you enjoyed this one too! If you want to find me on tumblr, I'm @sinkingsidewalks there as well


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott has some breakup thoughts, Tessa babysits

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't think I'd get one of these up before May! Sorry it's been so long, life's been busy. Hope you enjoy this :)

Scott wakes up on Tessa’s couch with a splitting headache and his mouth tasting like ash. His arm is numb underneath Tess, who is still curled up next to him, dead asleep. Sunlight pours through the windows though, and he knows he won’t go back to sleep. 

He shifts, trying to get comfortable again and work some of the blood back into his hand. Tessa makes her sleepy disgruntled sound though so he stills to not wake her. He watches her face smooth out after a minute and grins softly at her.

Last night when his plane landed he felt like shit. Heartbroken and worn down and critical of how much of himself he’d put into his relationship. He hadn’t even thought about it before Tessa’s address was coming out of his mouth to the taxi driver. Whenever he feels off-balance or overemotional, he always drifts towards her. 

She steadies him, always has. She makes sense of his emotions, puts names to them and gives him the words to make them feel less abrasive. Over the years he’s needed her less and less – and it’s a good thing, he never wants to only be emotional labour to her – but by her side is still the most comfortable place to deal with things.

And he finds that in the sunrise he doesn’t feel as bad as he expected to. Sure, he doesn’t feel like a bundle of kittens, he’s not going to shout happiness from the rooftops, but a night of talking and drinking and crying, combined with waking up with a face full of Tessa’s hair, surrounded by the familiar smells of her soap, is a better medicine than any doctor could prescribe. 

Tess shifts and sighs in her sleep, and with his free hand he gently moves aside the hair that’s falling into her face. Her nose scrunches, then she resettles.

His back hurts from sleeping on the couch but he’d still choose to be right here every time. He can’t imagine ever wanting to be anywhere else.

 

When the new coffee table she ordered said ‘self-assembly’ on the web page, she figured it would only involve attaching the top to the bottom or screwing some bolts on. That is not the case. It shows up in six separate boxes littered across her living room floor and a veritable novel of assembly instructions. 

Instead of opening them, she texts Scott and goes to the liquor store. 

He shows up with a pizza once he’s done at the rink and an actual honest to god toolbox that looks older than their grandparents. 

“Do you actually know how to use anything in that?” She asks, already on the living room floor surrounded by parts. She’s seen him put the blade on a skate before no problem, but that’s a very specific skill set. It’s not like they ever had free time for hobbies and he’s never shown any interest besides the IKEA furniture they put together drunk in Canton. 

“Course I do. I’m a country boy, I know how to use a hammer.” He sets the toolbox down on the floor and the pizza on the bottom of the fireplace mantle so the grease doesn’t seep through the box onto her rug. “How hard can it be?” He goes to the kitchen to get plates and beers for the pizza. 

The IKEA furniture lasted about six hours before she’d taken a role of duct tape to it. 

Three hours later the sun has set and the pizza’s gone and Tessa figures she should have just paid the delivery guys the hundred bucks to put it together. 

She leans against her sofa, defeated. “I should’ve called Charlie.” 

“Hey!” Scott protests, offended, still working within the pile of screws and bolts and pieces of metal scattered across the floor. He’s got one of the legs built and is trying to figure out how the other connects where they’re supposed to intersect to make an X in the middle. “I’ve got this.”

He’s flipping back and forth between two pages of the instructions rapidly while turning a piece of metal in his other hand. She swallows a snort. “Really?”

“Of course.”

“Well,” she sighs, “I guess you never let me down.” She gets up to get them fresh beers, patting his shoulder as she passes. Before she gets to the kitchen though she feels his eyes on her and she turns back to find him staring. “What?”

He stares for another second then blinks and shakes his head. “Nothing.”

She goes to the kitchen. 

He calls after her, “Bring your secret chocolate stash.”

She laughs but does. Allows him free range over her pile of snacks and isn’t surprised at all when he picks out the bag of dark chocolate covered blueberries. He throws a few in his mouth and goes straight back to the coffee table. 

Tessa cracks open a box of Smarties, lets one melt on her tongue until the shell cracks and she can taste the chocolate. She figured he would have called it by now. That as soon as she brought snacks the rest of the night would turn into them gossiping on the couch like teenagers. But he seems convinced, is showing no signs of giving up. 

She puts down the candy and climbs back onto the floor with him, lifting the metal frame. Together, they manage to slot the table’s legs into place. 

 

The ring burns a hole in his pocket from the moment he buys it. It feels red hot, like it should melt the velvety fabric of the box it sits in. He walks around all week like he’s going to get a call from the fire department saying his house has burned to the ground. 

He doesn’t know why he did it. He’s single. Yet he wandered into the jewelry store downtown and bought an engagement ring. He threw down more money than any piece of jewelry should reasonably cost on a round cut diamond set in a twisted band, one half solid platinum, the other embedded with yet more diamonds. He hadn’t even flinched when the saleswoman told him there were no returns. 

All for a dumb idea in his head that is definitely crazy. 

If Tess doesn’t agree, she’s going to kill him.

 

It takes her three days for his weird behaviour to really set in, then another week to realize it’s not going away. The thing is, it’s not obvious. He goes about his days business as usual, he doesn’t call less or visit more, but there’s still something just slightly off about him. The way he talks and the way he moves in space around her. 

She doesn’t know how to bring it up because she doesn’t know how to put into words what’s changed so she doesn’t. She’s had more than enough practice at waiting him out. 

When he asks, she goes with him to the big Moir family dinner that weekend. A bigger one than usual because it’s the last one his parents will have in the house. He’s his usual self through dinner and she allows herself to relax a little, catching up with his cousins and listening to his niece talk about school. 

He disappears after the plates are cleared though, which is odd considering he’s usually at the center of the Moir chaos. But she doesn’t have to guess where he is, just heads up into his old bedroom. The door creaks when she opens it and he’s there sitting on the bed.

“Hey,” he greets her, welcoming her into his space. 

“Hey,” she mimics. “What’s up?”

He shrugs. “I’m gonna miss this room.” 

It always surprises her how nostalgic he can be. Usually, between them, she’s the one who clings to sentimentalities, who keeps her free dance dress in a glass case and refuses to wear it twice. 

But he still has his first pair of skates – even though they were white – and the keys to his first truck tucked away somewhere. She sits down beside him on the bed and leans her head on his shoulder. 

“It’s just always been home. Even though it hasn’t been where I live in a long time, it’s still been home.”

“I know,” she whispers. 

Now it’s blank, the posters down from the walls, the knickknacks off the shelves, ready for a new family to move into. It was just as hard when her mom sold the house. 

“It’s part of youngest child syndrome I think,” she says.

“What?”

“Never being quite ready to move on when everyone else is.”

“Feeling left in the dust.” He agrees, then kisses the top of her head. “Thanks for coming tonight.”

“I’m glad I did.”

He leans his head on top of hers. 

“Are you okay?” She asks gently, ready to drop it if he doesn’t want to say. 

He doesn’t answer. She doesn’t know if it’s only this that’s bothering him or if he just doesn’t know how to talk about it, so she just waits. 

She feels him inhale before he speaks. “Tess-“ 

“Uncle Scott! Tess!” A little voice yells up the stairs, breaking the whole moment. “It’s desert time!”

Tessa offers him a small smile and her hand. “Guess we better get back.”

“Yeah,”’ he says and squeezes her fingers as they head downstairs. 

 

He drops the bags of groceries at the mouth of the entrance hall and stares at the scene. Tessa’s normally pristine formal living room is scattered in disarray. The cushions are pulled off all the furniture and littered around the room. Her coffee table, the new one they put together the week before, is shoved out of place and up against the wall. It derails his plan a little.

Tessa herself sits perched on the back of the sofa while her niece, Poppy, bounces on the cushion-less springs of the seat. Music that sounds like it’s from a video game pours through the house. 

“Scott!” Poppy cries, whipping around to look at him. “The floor is lava!”

And then it makes sense. The cushions make stepping stones from the couch to the fireplace, and the coffee table is a bridge from there to the stairs. But on the couch they look stuck, too far from the dining room to grab a chair and the kitchen island. 

“It is?!” Scott plays along, grinning at Poppy and T’s expectantly raised eyebrow. “Good thing I’m wearing my fireproof shoes.” He leaves the groceries burning on the floor and steps across the room to the back of the couch. “You look a little stuck there, kiddo.” 

Tess rolls her eyes at his teasing and Poppy bounces higher in excitement. 

“We need to get to the TV room to rescue Princess Hopper before the lava monster takes over!”

Tessa admits, “I maybe didn’t think this part through.”

“Oh, well then.” He turns his back. “Scott’s fire taxi, at your service.” 

Poppy scrambles up onto his back and he boosts her onto his shoulders, then he turns around and holds out his arms for Tess.

“Scott.” She says, and means _No_. “She’s more than forty pounds now.”

“I’m good.” He’s used to having at least a couple kids hanging off him in his own family. And he’d never drop Tess, let alone Poppy.

“Come on Auntie T, Scott’s fire shoes are running out of power,” Poppy says, pulling at his hair. 

Scott wiggles his fingers and Tessa swings her legs over to the other side of the couch to be lifted so he pulls her into his arms in a basic lift. She holds onto Poppy’s calves, hanging over his shoulders. 

“Where to?”

“The TV room,” Poppy instructs, “But look out for the goblins.”

“Goblins?” He raises an eyebrow at T who shrugs.

“They live in the walls and try to push you into the lava.”

“Well, I’ll stay away from the walls then.” He trots through the kitchen, then down into the back den where Princess Hopper, Poppy’s stuffed bunny is sitting on the couch. He lets T down onto the sofa then lifts Poppy off his shoulders. 

She snatches up her bunny as soon as she’s down and hugs it tight. “Mission success!” 

Scott holds out his hand for her to high five, then for Tess.

“Scott and I have to do some work now, Pops, okay? You want to watch TV until your dad gets here?” Tessa glances at her phone screen. “He shouldn’t be long.”

“Okay.” Poppy settles down on the couch, Hopper under her arm. “Can I watch _Coco_?”

“Sure,” Tessa says.

While she sets up the TV, Scott goes back for the groceries still abandoned in the hall and starts putting them away. “Good game,” he says when she meets him in the kitchen, nodding to Poppy in explanation. 

Tessa laughs, “I think it’s roughly the plot to _Moana_.” She sits on the edge of one of the island stools. “What are you making for dinner?”

“Who says I’m making dinner?” he teases. 

“Well you brought food and you certainly won’t trust me with it.”

He smiles into the fridge. “We’re having pasta, the one with pesto you like.” He turns around and she’s looking at him funny. “What?”

“You don’t like pesto.”

“That’s why I clarified you like it.” He should have known this would make her suspicious. But he wanted to make her something she likes, and she gloated over this recipe for weeks even though he wasn’t much of a fan of it. 

She opens her mouth to argue but the doorbell cuts her off. “Pops,” she calls over, “That’s your dad, get your shoes.” She squints her eyes at Scott in confusion but goes to get the door without another word. 

After Poppy’s gone home, they talk tour details in the kitchen while Tessa watches him cook. She tries to help a couple times but he shoes her back to her stool, claiming that she can’t be trusted. She keeps watching him, and he knows she can feel something is off. 

He only makes her more suspicious when he insists at eating at her dining table, and lights the candle sticks she keeps there. But she’s Tessa, so she waits him out, just eats the pesto dish she loves and watches him do the same. 

“What’s going on?” Tessa finally asks, sitting back at the table after they’ve cleared their plates into the kitchen. 

“Nothing.” Scott shrugs, he can tell that she doesn’t believe him for a second. He was planning on getting some chocolate into her before he got to this point, but he knows now that they’re done eating she won’t let it drop. He takes a breath. 

“Actually I do have something to ask you,” he tries to say casually. It’s only Tessa but his palms are still sweating as he pulls the ring box out of his pocket. He sets it between them on the cleared table and pops the hinge open, revealing the ring.

He watches her eyebrows shoot up, her lips twist into a frown as she stares. He twists his fingers nervously as the seconds pass. Her mind is working so hard to understand it’s almost visible.

Finally, she looks back up at him. “Do you want my opinion or?”

“I want you to marry me.”

There’s a moment of abject silence. It’s so quiet he can hear his blood moving through the capillaries in his fingers, the electricity moving through the light above them. He can hear the Earth turning on its axis.

“What… the fuck?” she stutters.

“Look, T-“

“What the fuck, Scott?”

He waits her out, lets her get her initial reaction out, reminds himself that he’s been thinking about this and she hasn’t had that luxury yet. She doesn’t say anything more though.

“Can it be my turn to talk?” he asks, genuinely. A very old therapy trick to keep them from bickering, to stop reactionary arguments and make them think about what the other is saying. 

“ _Please_.”

He doesn’t exactly take that as a good sign. It’s more of a ‘please explain what the fuck is going on and how you are not in any way serious about this’ than a ‘please show me why this is a good idea’.

“So I’ve been thinking about this for a while-“ he starts and she opens her mouth to contest him but he cuts her off before she can speak. “Don’t make me get the talking wand.” 

She rolls her eyes and frowns, but her lips snap shut so he continues. 

“I’ve been thinking about what it would be like for us to be married since we found that old note. Sure it wasn’t serious at first, but then I was single again, and I was thinking about the break up, and all the things that caused it, and all the things that would have caused it at some point in the future, because we definitely didn’t have the kind of relationship that was going to last a lifetime. 

“But we do, kiddo. We already know that. We’ve already lasted longer than most marriages. And it hasn’t been all rainbows and sunshine, we’ve dealt with some really hard shit, but we’ve managed to come out stronger, on the other side, together. All the things that have caused a breakup or would have in my previous relationships wouldn’t with you.”

He takes a breath. “That’s all I’ve got.”

“I don’t still have the talking wand.” Is what she starts with as soon as he relinquishes his power and it makes him grin, transports him right back to being twelve and sitting in the office with Suze hashing things out. Because back then there _was_ a literal talking wand, one of those gel and glitter filled ones that you could tip one way and watch the plastic silver stars move through.

Then she sighs and they’re back to serious. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“Anywhere, just tell me what you’re thinking, kiddo.”

She thinks about it for a minute and rubs at her forehead before she speaks. “How do we know that we won’t have those problems you foresee with other women; we’ve never been in a romantic relationship. Those things could exist without us having noticed them before.”

He pauses, waits for more even though he has a counterargument, because he’s not sure if they’re still in the monologue portion of the talk or if they’ve moved on to a conversation and he doesn’t want to step on her feelings. 

“You can talk.”

“Thank you.” He sighs, “But come on Tess, we’ve spent years in a romantic relationship with each other.”

She balks. “We’ve never-“

“Not a physical romantic relationship, obviously, not off the ice, but you can’t deny that our partnership has relied on emotional intimacy for years.”

She thinks on that for a minute, running her top teeth over her bottom lip and he wants to reach out and stop her from breaking the skin, he wants to touch her and bleed all the tension from her body. But he stays with his hands folded neatly on the table, because she’ll want space to think. 

It goes on for more than a minute and he knows she’s not paying attention to him anymore. She’s caught up in everything that he’s been mulling over for the past week. The things it would change between them and the things it wouldn’t, what the future would look like if they did and if they didn’t, the pros and the cons. It’s Tess, so she’s probably making a list. 

It makes him nervous. He doesn’t know where she’s talking herself in her head. He needs to pull her back to the conversation if they’re going to get anywhere. 

“What’s the big stopping point, T? What’s the thing that sets alarm bells off in your head?”

There’s a moment of hesitancy, then her eyes go wide and he knows she’s recognized the thought causing her ill ease. He stretches one hand halfway across the table, reaching, but waiting for her to cross to him as well, and awaits her answer. 

But her brow furrows deeper and she darts up from the table. “I have to think.”

She’s gone from the room before he can get a word in. He drops his head down on the table, letting the wood grain grind into his forehead, and sighs. 

“Wonderfully done, Scott.” He says to himself, then gets up to load away the dirty dishes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did anyone else have an incredibly involved 'the floor is lava' game? Mine involved fairies and getting yelled at for scaling the window frames.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tessa thinks about it, Scott agonizes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the dumbest thing I've ever written but just go with it okay?

Tessa thankfully doesn’t have to see him for a couple days after their fateful dinner. There are meetings and interviews that will keep her busy in Toronto for at least two days before she has to face that conversation again. It’s a relief, but it also builds the pressure in the back of her mind. 

She has no idea what she’s going to say to him. No. Idea. Nor does she have any clue how she’s going to figure out what she’s going to say to him. Or how she’s going to figure out what she even wants. It’s all a big mess, and she has absolutely no idea how to start sorting. 

On one hand, it’s the craziest idea he’s ever had. Worse than that one time when they were teenagers and he wanted to skate on the frozen lake behind a snowmobile holding a rope attached to it, ‘Like water-skiing, Tess’. She’d told him then he was going to break both his legs, now she doesn’t know how to tell him he’s going to break his heart. 

Because on the other hand, it could work. And that’s the scariest thought of all.

By the time she gets to Jordan’s apartment she’s no more clear on her own thoughts. Tessa settles into the corner of the couch, jittering with nerves, wondering how the hell she’s going to explain the situation while her sister pours wine. 

“Scott wants to get married.” She blurts out. Jordan, still halfway between the kitchen and the couch, freezes with two glasses of wine in her hand. 

“To you?”

Tessa nods aggressively. Jordan holds up a finger in pause, lifting it off the crystal, while she downs half her wine with her other hand before continuing. “Have I missed something in the last year? Have you two been secretly together?”

“No,” Tessa says weakly. Because it’s crazy. Right. Right? It’s absolutely insane that they would get married when they’ve never even been in a real romantic relationship. She hasn’t even kissed him off the ice since she was thirteen.

Jordan hands her the other wine glass and returns to the kitchen for the bottle. She refills both their glasses then settles down on the other end of the couch from Tessa. “How did this happen?”

Tessa takes a deep breath and explains it all. The silly pact they made as teenagers, finding the note in Alma and Joe’s house, Scott’s breakup, then his… proposal, for lack of a better word. By the time she’s finished she’s still got nervous jitters but it feels better having it out in the world, not just stewing in the bubble between her and Scott. 

Jordan takes a second to stare at her. “And you’re actually considering this?”

She opens her mouth to deny it, because it’s _crazy_ but she finds she can’t get the words out. Because they’re not exactly true. She’s got the ring in her purse. Had put it on her finger last night after Scott left just to see what it looked like. It fit perfectly. She drops her head into her hands. “I don’t know.”

“You are,” Jordan says, incredulous but not judgemental. “You really are thinking about marrying Scott.” She laughs a little. “God if only nine-year-old Tess could see you now. You were so in love with him.”

It’s Tessa’s turn for incredulous, she scoffs at her sister. “I was not. I was just in awe because he was so…” She trails off. ‘Big’ is the word that comes to mind, Scott was – is – so larger than life, when she thinks back to those early days at the skating club what she remembers most is being struck by how uninhibited he was. When he skated, when he danced, it went all the way up to the rafters, and it still does. While she, even as a little girl, thought through the precision of every movement, every moment.

She shakes herself out of her memories. “I just wanted to be like that.” She appreciates their balance now, but when they were younger he was easy to be jealous of. 

“That still doesn’t explain why you’re considering marrying him Tessie.”

Tessa smiles at the old nickname and sighs. “I know. I know it doesn’t make sense, but then I think to myself, when has anything about us ever made sense? Maybe this is just the final stage of weirdness.”

Jordan shakes her head. “I’m not going to tell you what to do, obviously, but I think there’s a lot more to figure out before you start considering this seriously. What happens if one of you meets someone else? Is he going to move in with you? Are you going to sleep with him? Because technically the marriage won’t be valid if you don’t.”

Tessa blushes all the way up to her ears and downs her wine to mask it. “We’ve only had one real conversation about it, Jo. Obviously we’ll need to figure stuff out.”

Jordan looks at her, hard and analyzing. “You are both going to have to be very clear with your boundaries and what you’re comfortable with.”

“Come on, Jordan, when has that ever been a problem for us?” She blushed her way through her first ‘consent and intimacy’ talk when she was _nine_ , then again almost every year until she was in her twenties. And she knows Scott got just as many, if not more. “Besides, it’s Scott, I trust him with my body more than anyone.”

“Maybe so, but you’ve also always had very strict boundaries in place whether you’ve seen them or not.”

“I know. I’m not taking this lightly.” And neither is Scott, she could hear it in his voice last night. 

“Promise?” Jordan asks, holding out her pinky. 

Tessa rolls her eyes, but links their fingers together and shakes. “Promise.”

 

Scott grinds his blades through the lumpy ice at the edge of the boards, where the Zamboni can’t quite reach, his shoulder just barely missing skimming along the hockey glass. He’s got half an ear on the ice around him, making sure he stays out of everyone’s way, but mostly he’s caught up in his own thoughts. 

He hasn’t heard from Tess in two days and he’s stewing over it. 

Not that he expected to. He knows that she’s in Toronto working, that she’ll be too busy to have the kind of conversation they need to have, and that it’s going to take her more than two days to sort out her own feelings about the bomb he dropped on her. But still, he’s stewing. 

He’s got another twenty minutes until his next set of kids show up – local kids, who want to make it to juniors in the next couple years but don’t have the resources to travel for training, so he goes to them – and usually he’d be in the office chatting with someone or working on tour stuff on his phone, but today he needs to move. The nervous energy in him has to be worked out, and the best way to do that is to skate. 

Because he’s worried. Worried about what Tessa’s thinking, how she’s twisting it, however logically, in his favour or against it. There’s an irrational paranoia in the back of his mind telling him that this is too much, this is the breaking point and she’s going to never speak to him again. Logically, he knows he’ll hear something, at the very least they have business together still, there’s a tour to plan still, he knows she won’t drop that, but part of him is absolutely convinced she’ll drop off the map, move to Australia or Paris to not have to deal with this and he’ll never hear from her again. 

So he wears out his blades while he waits for his next pair to arrive, knowing that they’re already dull, wondering, if he doesn’t hear from her, if picking up her skates to get them sharpened too would be a legitimate excuse to contact her. 

The kids show up and he leaves the ice to greet them, chats with some parents while they change into their gear from their school clothes. 

As he’s watching the pair of them warm up, his phone chimes, a siren sound, the personalized ring tone that she set for herself so he’d quote ‘answer his goddamn phone once in a while’ end quote. He scrambles for the device, ignoring the somewhat pointed looks of the other people in the stands. 

_Dinner tonight?_

_Yes_ , he replies immediately, not even caring that he sounds desperate. _Order pizza?_

_See you at 6._

 

Tessa paces from the living room, through the dining room, and around the kitchen island in a loop from 5:30 onwards. Each time she passes the dining room table she straightens out a piece of already evenly placed cutlery. Beside her place settings there’s a piece of paper and pen each, the page on her side already half filled with questions and talking points. 

She’s not freaking out, she’s prepared, that’s all. She may have called the pizza company twenty minutes early even though it’s a Wednesday night to order their compromise pizza – pepperoni, half mushroom for her, half bacon for him. There’s beer chilling in the fridge, and a bottle of white from the back of her cupboard, along with the prosecco that her mom brought over last Christmas – because if they hit the hard liquor, the conversation’s over. 

Because it needs to be a conversation. A sit down where they lay everything out on the table and see if any of it makes sense. That’s really all she figured out during her days of rumination, of restless nights and wandering thoughts. 

She loves him, of course she does, she’s spent her whole life loving him, but that doesn’t explain why she wants to marry him. And she does want to marry him. Whether as a response to her own non-existent relationships, a reaction to his own emotional turmoil over his breakup, or as a way to stake a claim to him, a way to make sure she’s always first in his life, she doesn’t know.

The doorbell rings and she startles, even though it’s only the pizza guy and she knows it, Scott’s never rang her doorbell in his life. She takes the box from the pimply teenager at her door and sets it on the dining room table just as Scott’s knock sounds on her door. 

“Come in!” She calls, as the door opens. “You’re just on time, the pizza just got here.” She hears him come up behind her and turns. The air already feels heavy.

“Cool.” He shifts from foot to foot, looking about as uncomfortable as she feels. They don’t deal with awkward much, not when it’s just the two of them. 

She nods to the table, “sit?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He falls into his usual chair and she follows suit across from him, tension in every line of the both of them. He pulls a piece of pizza out of the box and takes a bite while Tessa tries to figure out where to start. 

“I’m not saying no,” she blurts out, her heart skittering in her throat. Beneath the table her fingers flex, sweaty against her thighs. 

He pauses, puts down the slice. “Okay.” He waits, probably for her to say something but all she can do is stare at him and try to read his mind. When they were kids, she thought she could, that the emotions that rolled off him in waves and the ways that she could talk around them were his thoughts manifesting in her own mind. When she got older she obviously realized that it was just because of how much time they spent together and no small part of her own intuition, that as well as she knows him, she’ll never really be able to be in his head. 

She stares at him like she could though, like, if she stared into his eyes deeply enough, she’d find his soul laid out for her perusal. “Why?” 

He blinks. “That’s all?”

She nods her assent, it’s all she really needs from him. To hear it in his words, to hear the assurance in his voice. 

“Because I love you, but I also _like_ you. And when I look at my relationships, how they’ve failed, and at the ones I want to imitate, that’s what makes the difference. Look at my parents, fifty years together, you think they loved each other for every minute of that? But they’re best friends, and they work together, and that’s enough. I know that’s enough for us.”

She wants to believe in it, in him and them. That it’s not as crazy as everyone will think it is,   
But the problem has never been them, just everyone else. And she’s always had a harder time getting over that than he has. 

She rubs the tension in her forehead away. “What are our parents going to think? What is the internet going to think? What if it doesn’t work? What if we hate each other after three months? How do you know this is really what you want?”

“Does it matter? Do you want me to talk you into or out of this, T?” He takes a breath, sets his elbows on the table and leans forward. “How do we know anything? How did you know that coming back was the right decision? How did you know we weren’t going to flop?”

“I didn’t.” She mutters, lower lip caught between her teeth. 

“Exactly, but you believed. You believed in us, that’s all I’m asking for, if you want it.”

“Of course I believe in us.”

“So, what? So, yes?”

She scoffs. “Yes, Scott.” Then she realizes. _Yes_. She watches the grin break out over his face and can’t help but mirror it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bet you thought I forgot about this fic huh (I did). Sorry for the delay, hopefully the next one won't be as long a wait! Let me know what you think if you've made it this far and if you want to yell at me on tumblr I'm @sinkingsidewalks there as well


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